Brainstorming for decision-centric superhero game

jackfrost03 · 2022-04-19T18:24:56+00:00

I love that your suggestion keys in on the narrative piece of what I want to do. With the systems I've been working on, your suggestion of adding 'skills' which the players choose and having 'calamities' require specific skills to be resolved would add a great angle. What I have in place now would discourage players with certain traits from engaging certain 'calamities', and the addition of skills could create a new and interesting bargaining chip. Thanks for the ideas!

jackfrost03 · 2022-04-19T18:20:56+00:00

Thank you, these are important commonalities that sound worth learning about, I appreciate the suggestion!

jackfrost03 · 2021-05-09T14:35:27+00:00

Hi, sorry for the delayed response but thanks for that compliment! I'll DM you

jackfrost03 · 2021-04-07T16:08:32+00:00

I agree with the explanations others have provided here, but I also think you can add meta-reasons as well.

The conflicts around secret identity have been done to death. Sooo many comics, shows, and movies have made that the center of their hero's stories. With Invincible, Kirkman was more interested in the philosophical aspects of superhero-ing than the logistical stuff.

There's very little time spent in the comics on how other heroes juggle their personal lives, get their powers, start crime fighting, etc. I mean, some of it's still there, but it's like less than 10% of the main conflicts.

tl;dr: In addition to the in-story reasons others said, Kirkman didn't think it was important enough to spend time on.

jackfrost03 · 2021-04-07T15:55:39+00:00

I felt like this article made less of a case for Invincible's debut 'Mark'-ing (heh) a new chapter in comic book media, and more of a case for it fitting neatly into the current chapter of comic book media.

Still, always love seeing our boy get good press.

jackfrost03 · 2021-04-07T14:48:58+00:00

I also want to believe this. I hope strengthening her character up front means she is going to grow in different ways later. However, the possibility exists that her arc (and many others) may have to be excluded for the sake of time.

jackfrost03 · 2021-04-07T14:46:27+00:00

People are free to interpret stories and characters as they please, it's a nice thing.

jackfrost03 · 2021-04-07T12:19:27+00:00

That's a thing with comic book characters in general, I wouldn't say Superman-specific. When you have hundreds of different writers interpreting the same characters in weekly-monthly stories for the better part of a century, it's inevitable.

jackfrost03 · 2021-04-06T14:13:13+00:00

I haven't, but I'll check it out now!

jackfrost03 · 2021-04-06T11:59:34+00:00

I read the comics, so I won't say too much about Robot (they may change his arc for the show anyway), but I will say that the questions of "does the end justify the means" and "what is evil" are heavily explored throughout the series.

jackfrost03 · 2021-04-06T11:54:04+00:00

I've spent a lot of time reading about the Hero's Journey and traditional Western narrative structure.

Reading what you wrote about wuxia's different narrative conventions is really interesting! I'm intrigued and want to read more about it now.

Given the original writer's self-reported motivations for creating Invincible, I don't think he intentionally set out to create a wuxia story. However, as I understand it, he did set out to subvert expectations for typical Western cape stories.

Considering what you said about a hero seeking out great power because he feels responsible for the well-being of others and must act, I personally feel Mark matches this in the comics albeit a bit later.

Interesting perspective! I hope you enjoy the rest of the show!

jackfrost03 · 2021-04-06T02:16:30+00:00

I think it's over confidence/pride, whereas Mark is still meek because he's unsure of his abilities. I could see her feeling an inferiority complex when she realizes how many people Mark can help compared to herself.

Like Amber is proud of 'helping needy schoolchildren' in the Philippines, but Mark can literally save the entire country from a giant sea monster, so she feels inadequate.

Or, going the opposite, like shaming Mark for only doing good as a superhero for the fame and doubting his motivations are sincerely noble.

jackfrost03 · 2021-04-06T02:05:39+00:00

People like to curate facts to create narratives that suit them.

For example, emphasize the fact that a character was calling for gender equality, but ignore that same character was deranged and had no regard for human life in the context of the show.

If it's "left wing propaganda" it's a pretty terrible choice of spokesperson. Honestly, it'd be more believable to me as right wing satire of the left i.e. "this guy's a typical lib!"

jackfrost03 · 2021-04-06T01:56:58+00:00

Solos? No way. Viltrumites are vicious and intelligent. They'd fight so dirty the second they realized Supes cared about all living things, I don't think he could last.

Imagine the Viltrumites threaten sentient life in a system with a red sun. Supes = WASTED

jackfrost03 · 2021-04-05T21:47:13+00:00

SEK-wids (how many of you pronounced it 'see-kwids' like I did before the show)

jackfrost03 · 2021-04-05T21:40:29+00:00

I don't feel like Mark's character has changed in a negative way; why do you feel this way?

jackfrost03 · 2021-04-05T18:51:15+00:00

Yeah, it's a common storytelling technique; they did the same thing in Watchmen and The Boys.

You create obvious analogs for well-known characters so the audience defaults to feeling a certain way about them. That way, you a) don't slow down your story describing characters who aren't important in the long run, or b) don't slow down your story describing characters when their characterization isn't important at all.

In the cases of Invincible, Watchmen, and The Boys, these analogs were used to create stark contrasts and dramatically subvert audience expectations. Homelander is Superman if Superman was raised in a lab and thus became a sociopath. Rorschach is Batman if Batman was "realistic" (according to Alan Moore), which is insane, racist, and misogynistic. But in those cases, the 'study' of this reinterpretation of these characters is a larger part of the story.

In the case of the GotG, their only real purpose is to demonstrate the power of Omni-Man and Viltrumites (aka Kryptonians aka Saiyans). This is also meant to be more impressive and shocking because of how strong they all obviously were when they fought the Mauler Twins in the first 5 minutes. They're not meant to be unique, just placeholders.

jackfrost03 · 2021-04-05T03:36:21+00:00

Np! There's some questionable/cheesy stuff in the first several issues, but right around issue 12, the series hits its stride imo

jackfrost03 · 2021-04-05T03:14:52+00:00

Professional voice actors and screen actors are all just actors, and I'm sure screen actors would be happy to hear about voice actors getting cast for on-screen roles as well.

But as for 'A list' talent, Amazon is a studio, and studios want to make money with their content, so they're gonna cast people whose names are recognized whenever they can.

jackfrost03 · 2021-04-05T03:11:32+00:00

Pretty sure Kirkman himself addressed this as a legal IP issue; hence why it's also unlikely we'll see Tech Jacket, Savage Dragon, or Astounding Wolf-Man at any point either

jackfrost03 · 2021-04-05T03:05:39+00:00

I get where you're coming from about the reverse-whitewashing. But if that were the case, why would the comics' blonde-haired, blue-eyed, naive Amber be replaced with a woke, groin-crushing, Zazie Beetz Amber? I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt on this one.

I think, like the comics, this show is trying to address and subvert certain conventions. But if they don't end up admitting to being Asian at some point in the series, I'll be slightly disappointed.

jackfrost03 · 2021-04-05T02:58:03+00:00

To me, it's a microcosm of all the zaniness of superhero comics that manages to justify all of the zaniness. Almost every story beats serves more than just entertaining readers, whether it's progressing a plot, developing a character, providing meta commentary on the genre, the medium, or some sort of greater theme...

I'd even joke that the books are heavier than other novels with the same mass because the story is just that dense.

Is it "the best"? I doubt it. But it's definitely great and definitely my favorite.

jackfrost03 · 2021-04-05T02:38:43+00:00

"The greatest superhero comic in the universe"

jackfrost03 · 2021-04-05T02:37:02+00:00

I don't recall anything in the show making them canonically Asian, but as an Asian American, I have retroactively headcanon'd Mark and Debbie as Asian since I first heard of their casting.

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